Report: ‘Pacific Rim 2’ Has been ‘Halted Indefinitely’

A fascinating new article in The Hollywood Reporter details a growing battle between Universal Pictures and Legendary Pictures, the production company behind films like The Dark Knight, Man of Steel, Godzilla, and Jurassic World. This spat between entertainment titans sounds like it could build into a full-on war, akin to a rumble between giant robots and interdimensional aliens — partly because of the studio’s reluctance to make an actual movie about giant robots warring with interdimensional aliens. That film, of course, is Pacific Rim 2, and according to THR, it’s been “halted indefinitely.”

The first Pacific Rim, from director Guillermo del Toro opened in the summer of 2013 to unspectacular domestic box office (just $101.8 million in the U.S.), but the film performed well overseas and wound up grossing more than $409 million worldwide. Legendary has been pushing for a sequel because it performed “exceptionally well in China, where the company is heavily invested,” but as part of the ongoing struggles between the production company and its distributor, the development on the project has now been stopped and the movie “will be pushed back (if it gets made at all).” It was originally scheduled for an August 2017 release.

There’s a ton of interesting news in that THR article (like Legendary having to cover the entire budget for del Toro’s Crimson Peak after he delivered an R-rated cut after promising Universal a PG-13) so head over and read the whole thing. As for Pacific Rim 2, it always seemed surprising that a sequel would get made in the first place, given the lukewarm response to the movie, at least in the United States. Ironically, the whole premise of Pacific Rim was about robot pilots working together to defeat these enemies, using “drifting” technology to link their brains. It sounds like Universal and Legendary’s teamwork and connection could use a tune-up.